US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Best way to ticket consecutive PHL-DFW trips?

I have to make two trips PHL-DFW in consecutive weeks at the end of the month. The mid-week airfare is running $1,126 per trip.

I'd like to save some money here, if possible (we're not re-billing the client for travel on this project), but I have some questions.

First, what is USAirways' official policy on back-to-back tickets? This is obviously the cheapest option, but it defnitely works against the "intent" of the Saturday-stay required fares. In this case, I would buy:

Monday: PHL - DFW
Friday: DFW - PHL
Monday: PHL - DFW
Friday: DFW - PHL

But I've heard that this arrangement is specifically not allowed.

My second choice would be to purchase a one-way ticket PHL-DFW, then a roundtrip DFW-PHL over the weekend, then another one-way ticket DFW-PHL at the end of the second trip. This is STILL nearly $1,000 less than purchasing two midweek tickets, and as far as I can tell, shouldn't be ethically wrong or work against any stated policies of US.

In this case:

Monday: PHL - DFW (one way)
Friday: DFW - PHL
Monday: PHL - DFW (cheap round-trip)
Friday: DFW - PHL (one way)


Are there other options that I'm not considering? Or should I just suck it up and pay the midweek fares?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Brett

The first situation you describe is back to back ticketing, and US does not permit it.

The second situation (the "positioning" one-way flights) is perfectly acceptable. I used to do the initial one-way a few years back while commuting from ORD. (I'd also do back to back on two carriers, which is legal if you want to do it).

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Saving the world, one clue at a time.

Thanks for the advice - I was figuring that the combo of one-ways and the cheap weekend fare would be the best.

For comparison/general info:

Midweek fares were $1,126.00 each = $2,252 Total.

One-ways: $563 each X 2 = $1,126.00
Cheap weekend R/T: $241.00
TOTAL = $1,305.00

This will represent a savings of $895.00 from purchasing the midweek fares.

Silly.

"Ethics" aside, you could always back-to-back with another airline (i.e. American).

Er, that is, one ticket on US Airways, the other one on American.

Frankly, I don't care what they permit or not. It's their ridiculous fare structure that inhibits you from making the best economical trip.

They certainly won't arrest you for it. The worst they'd do is cancel a ticket. But then they'd also lose that revenue, which they really can't afford right now.

If you go with option 2, send copies of your receipts/boarding passes from the other airline trip to illustrate how they lost your business on those flights because of their stupid fare structure.

Okay, I'm done ranting.

I'm with ATC & PHL on this one. Buy one rt on each airline.

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Play the travel game 3 vacations into the future!

Full-fare mid-week (x2) = $2256
2 one ways (M1, F2) and a F1-M2 round-trip = $1367
M1-F2 RT on AA + F1-M2 RT on US = $625

Yes, back-to-back on 1 airline is against the rules. I can't find the e-mail from our travel folks, but it laid out the penalties - much more than cancelling your ticket, as a previous poster stated.


<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by bmolotsk:
I'd like to save some money here, if possible (we're not re-billing the client for travel on this project)</font>

I always do what's needed to save my client money. You wouldn't be working for McKinsey, would you? (No, wait, they would never not bill a client, and it would be in F). http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Edit-Can't figure out how to get the *&%& http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thumbsup.gif smiley face. It..was..a..joke... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by CPRich (edited 03-04-2003).]

a wise man once said:

Never let a consultant take you to lunch - you'll see the cost of the lunch plus 30% on your next invoice.

Didn't mean to imply that I'm not cost-conscious when booking billable travel http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

You can save even more

Midweek fares were $1,126.00 each = $2,252 Total.

One-ways: $563 each X 2 = $1,126.00
Cheap weekend R/T: $241.00
TOTAL = $1,305.00


Instead
on one way $563
two cheap weekend r/t $482 (throw away the last flight)
Total $1045

I thought I read somewhere once that if you don't use the return portion of a round-trip ticket, the airline reserves the right to charge you the full one-way fare. Is there any truth to that?

So, if the "other airline" were UA, you could earn US miles on all of the flights, right?

And some of the flights might even be on US metal through the codeshare.

Or on some routes (unfortunately not PHL-DFW), the whole trip might be on US metal.

And this wouldn't be breaking the rules at all, right?

The best way that by far holds the greatest savings is to buy a multi-leg ticket from PHL-DFW-PHL-DFW-PHL. I checked a ticket for the weeks of March 17 and 24 (that's without a 14 day advance purchase) and found a full ticket price of $1137.50. If you are going the weeks of March 24 and 31, then you can get a ticket as cheap as $652.50. You may pay a few hundred more in this case for non-stops, but it's a hell of a way to buy tickets. The only caveat is that you can't make a change to the ticket without possibly having it repriced. But, hell, if we go to war, you'll have a 90 day flex period. I've been buy up to 3 week tickets like this since last fall and US hasn't changed their pricing to catch it yet. You can buy 2 week tickets on line, but if you need 3, you have to go through an agent or call, and it may be paper ticketed.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by underwoodn:
The best way that by far holds the greatest savings is to buy a multi-leg ticket from PHL-DFW-PHL-DFW-PHL. I checked a ticket for the weeks of March 17 and 24 (that's without a 14 day advance purchase) and found a full ticket price of $1137.50. If you are going the weeks of March 24 and 31, then you can get a ticket as cheap as $652.50. You may pay a few hundred more in this case for non-stops, but it's a hell of a way to buy tickets. The only caveat is that you can't make a change to the ticket without possibly having it repriced. But, hell, if we go to war, you'll have a 90 day flex period. I've been buy up to 3 week tickets like this since last fall and US hasn't changed their pricing to catch it yet. You can buy 2 week tickets on line, but if you need 3, you have to go through an agent or call, and it may be paper ticketed.</font>


I found as low as $488 with that approach, but it involves 3 airlines (including AirTran - ack!) and 6 flights, and probably a paper ticket to boot. The cheapest non-stops on that route are still $1367.

I'd stick with my $625 non-stops listed above - unless you crave stopovers and complexity.

I have been double booking with both flights on US for the last 3 years and have never been caught (about 24 flights a year)so I wouldn't sweat it.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by rather_surf:
I have been double booking with both flights on US for the last 3 years and have never been caught (about 24 flights a year)so I wouldn't sweat it. </font>

I hope that US can't link your user ID or e-mail address to your FF account number...

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by rather_surf:
I have been double booking with both flights on US for the last 3 years and have never been caught (about 24 flights a year)so I wouldn't sweat it. </font>


By double booking do you mean back-to-back (embedding a Fri-Mon flight within a Mon-Fri over 2 weeks)?.

If so, either you have a very brave travel agency or you are willing to get caught, pay full-fare, and be subject to other nasties if they look into your travel history.

When it's so easy to work within the rules, why bother?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by CPRich:

By double booking do you mean back-to-back (embedding a Fri-Mon flight within a Mon-Fri over 2 weeks)?.

If so, either you have a very brave travel agency or you are willing to get caught, pay full-fare, and be subject to other nasties if they look into your travel history.

When it's so easy to work within the rules, why bother?</font>

Why bother??? how about saving over a grand per ticket- that adds up to over 100k in the last 3 years - what could I lose - the miles -- who cares they are mostly worthless or will be completely worthless the way things are going. Personally I think the fare rules are bulls**t and I feel it is my duty to get the cheapest ticket.

What's funny is I've never seen any lingo on the fare rules against double booking.

I know many people that do this. I think a judge would laugh and throw the complaint out if they ever tried to collect some sort restitution on it.

It all comes back to the way they go about doing business. If they want to enforce a rule, they need to do it up-front and not in hindsight. They could EASILY write some code on their computers to look a person's FF # and check this, and when you go to hit the purchase button - have it pop up with a message saying "Sorry, no back to back tickets".

It's just like the thing with the bonus codes. How unprofessional is it that they can't pay a programmer to spend a day or two fixing the code acceptance problem?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by underwoodn:
The best way that by far holds the greatest savings is to buy a multi-leg ticket from PHL-DFW-PHL-DFW-PHL. I checked a ticket for the weeks of March 17 and 24 (that's without a 14 day advance purchase) and found a full ticket price of $1137.50. If you are going the weeks of March 24 and 31, then you can get a ticket as cheap as $652.50. You may pay a few hundred more in this case for non-stops, but it's a hell of a way to buy tickets. The only caveat is that you can't make a change to the ticket without possibly having it repriced. But, hell, if we go to war, you'll have a 90 day flex period. I've been buy up to 3 week tickets like this since last fall and US hasn't changed their pricing to catch it yet. You can buy 2 week tickets on line, but if you need 3, you have to go through an agent or call, and it may be paper ticketed.</font>

There is nothing wrong with their pricing. As you noticed, the non-stop flights do cost more. I checked March 17-21,24-28, and the non-stops is $916, and the connecting is $652.50.

For a simple roundtrip PHL-DFW, the base fare is the same for non-stop as it is for a PIT connection.

However, when you want two Mon-Fri round trips, the non-stop flights must use at least one fare basis that does not require a Saturday night stay. Otherwise the minimum stay is not being met.

An itinerary with PIT "connecting" flights is not based on two PHL-DFW round trip fares with a real PIT connection, it is using end-on-end ticketing with PIT being the fare combination point.

If you don't mind extra segments, it may be cheaper to do the same thing but with some other city as the fare combination point (CMH or something like that). Then PIT would be an actual connection, but the basic idea is the same -- use end-on-end so that DFW-PHL and back is one round trip, and PHL-someplace and someplace-DFW and back are two other round trips in the middle.

Most web sites don't spend much time looking for non-hub-based end-on-end ticketing for a double Monday-Friday trip. Both Expedia.com and usairways.com offered the PIT connections as a cheaper alternative to the non-stop but didn't offer anything else. You have to find the extra cheap, extra segments deals yourself.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by bfunkjeep:
What's funny is I've never seen any lingo on the fare rules against double booking.

I know many people that do this. I think a judge would laugh and throw the complaint out if they ever tried to collect some sort restitution on it.

It all comes back to the way they go about doing business. If they want to enforce a rule, they need to do it up-front and not in hindsight. They could EASILY write some code on their computers to look a person's FF # and check this, and when you go to hit the purchase button - have it pop up with a message saying "Sorry, no back to back tickets".

It's just like the thing with the bonus codes. How unprofessional is it that they can't pay a programmer to spend a day or two fixing the code acceptance problem?</font>

It's in the combination section of the fare rules:

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">-MULTIPLE ROUND TRIP FARES BETWEEN THE SAME TWO POINTS MAY NOT BE COMBINED OUT OF SEQUENCE ON THE SAME TICKET TO AVOID MINIMUM STAY REQUIREMENTS</font>

Regarding a message saying "sorry, no back to backs" -- bad idea. Unless you spend several CPU seconds making sure it is not a back-to-back (very expensive!), there are going to be situations that would test positive for a simple back-to-back check. You really don't want to be telling people not to buy an airline ticket!

I have a friend who double-books on almost every trip (which is almost weekly). He uses Delta a lot, and I would imagine they have the same rules as US. At this stage of the game, while the chances of getting caught seem to be low, you never know these days, especially with our favorite carrier...

[This message has been edited by tcollins33 (edited 03-06-2003).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by rather_surf:
Why bother??? how about saving over a grand per ticket- that adds up to over 100k in the last 3 years - what could I lose - the miles -- who cares they are mostly worthless or will be completely worthless the way things are going. Personally I think the fare rules are bulls**t and I feel it is my duty to get the cheapest ticket. </font>

I've yet to find a situation where I couldn't book a set of tickets by the rules and come up with the same/nearly the same price as back to backs. Perhaps your travel patterns are different.

If your miles are that worthless, I suggest you donate them to charity - my niece and the Make-A-Wish Foundation were both very grateful that someone did.

S*& &lt;IMG SRC="http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thumbsup.gif"&gt;w the rules, give me what's mine (or what I think should be mine). Nice....



[This message has been edited by CPRich (edited 03-06-2003).]